{"id":3189,"date":"2026-09-08T08:45:53","date_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:45:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/?p=3189"},"modified":"2026-09-08T08:45:56","modified_gmt":"2026-09-08T08:45:56","slug":"one-dollar-at-230000-tomans-what-does-it-mean-for-the-people","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/one-dollar-at-230000-tomans-what-does-it-mean-for-the-people\/","title":{"rendered":"One Dollar at 230,000 Tomans; What Does It Mean for the People?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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In recent weeks, the price of the dollar in Iran\u2019s market has crossed 230,000 tomans. At first glance, this may seem like nothing more than an economic figure, but for the majority of people in Iran, it has a much more tangible meaning: a table that becomes smaller every day, wages that no longer last until the end of the month, and a future that appears increasingly uncertain. In recent years, Iran\u2019s economy has entered a stage that many describe as a \u201cslow collapse\u201d; that is, a decline that does not happen all at once, but one that takes away part of people\u2019s ability to live each day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why is the value of the national currency falling so rapidly? The answer must be sought in several interconnected factors. First, extensive sanctions and the naval blockade have severely restricted Iran\u2019s oil exports, the country\u2019s main source of foreign-currency revenue. Oil exports by sea have almost come to a halt, and what is exported by land and by truck reaches, at best, around 270,000 barrels per day. This sharp decline means the loss of tens of billions of dollars in revenue that the government needs for importing essential goods, medicine, and industrial raw materials.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Second, the informal networks and financial channels that had been used for years to circumvent sanctions have now become riskier and more costly. The naval blockade has also disrupted the main routes of trade, and replacing them with land and rail routes, because of their lower capacity and higher costs, cannot compensate for this shortage. The natural result of all this is that the inflow of foreign currency into the country decreases, the Central Bank loses its ability to control the foreign-exchange market, and the value of the rial continues to fall every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The third factor, which may receive less attention but has a very heavy impact on everyday life, is the government\u2019s budget deficit. When oil revenues decline, the government is forced to borrow from the Central Bank to cover its ongoing expenses; in other words, it effectively prints money. Printing money without adequate backing increases liquidity, and increased liquidity fuels inflation. In this vicious cycle, workers and low-income groups are always the losers, because the speed at which prices rise is always several times faster than the speed at which wages increase.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This situation manifests itself in people\u2019s daily lives in very tangible ways. Every product whose raw materials or components are imported becomes more expensive with every rise in the dollar\u2019s price. When the price of the dollar has more than doubled in a short period, it means that the cost of imports has also increased by the same proportion, and this increase is transferred directly and immediately to the final prices of goods in stores. Official statistics put the annual inflation rate at around 70 percent, but for essential goods such as bread, rice, meat, and dairy products, the real inflation experienced by low-income households is much higher than this figure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The main point is this: a family\u2019s real income is determined not by the numerical amount of its salary, but by its purchasing power. When prices rise by 70 percent but wages increase by only 20 percent, it means that a worker or pensioner becomes poorer every month without losing their job. Many families initially eliminate non-essential expenses such as entertainment and clothing, but as the situation continues, they are eventually forced to reduce their consumption of essential food as well. Field reports indicate that consumption of meat, chicken, dairy products, and fruit among low-income groups has fallen to one of the lowest levels in several decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This crisis is not limited to prices; it also targets people\u2019s employment. Reduced imports of raw materials and machinery force many factories to operate at reduced capacity or shut down altogether. Existing estimates indicate that the combination of war and sanctions has destroyed more than one million jobs and left around two million people unemployed, either directly or indirectly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Different groups in society do not experience this crisis in the same way. Service-sector workers, from drivers and construction workers to shopkeepers and restaurant employees, have incomes that decline directly with the economic recession; when people have less purchasing power, demand for these services also decreases. Women who are heads of households are among those who suffer the most, because their incomes are generally lower and they must also manage their families\u2019 expenses alone. Pensioners face a similar situation; pension payments, even under the best circumstances, do not keep pace with inflation of around 70 percent, which has caused today\u2019s pensioners to become one of the poorest groups in Iranian society.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Iran\u2019s middle class has also steadily become poorer in recent years, and the collapse of the rial has accelerated this process. A large portion of families who considered themselves middle class only a few years ago now belong to low-income groups. But the consequences of this crisis go beyond economic figures and charts. Increased migration among young people and skilled workers, the expansion of urban poverty and marginalization, the rise of social problems such as addiction and child labor, and the growing despair and frustration among the younger generation are all other faces of the same currency collapse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The fall in the value of the rial to 230,000 tomans per U.S. dollar, in reality, means the collapse of society\u2019s ability to maintain a normal life; it means the collapse of the quality of life for millions of workers, laborers, and low-income people in Iran. Sanctions, the naval blockade, declining oil exports, restricted access to foreign currency, and inflation have all combined to push people\u2019s ability to endure toward the point of a social explosion, with unpredictable consequences.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In recent weeks, the price of the dollar in Iran\u2019s market has crossed 230,000 tomans….<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3190,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[33,24,10,18,167,30,8,11,166,35,15],"post_badge":[],"class_list":["post-3189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-quote","tag-abroad-committee-of-the-communist-party-of-iran","tag-communist-party-of-iran","tag-cpi","tag-daily-quote","tag-dollar","tag-iran","tag-komala","tag-kurdistan","tag-money","tag-poverty","tag-war"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3189"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3191,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3189\/revisions\/3191"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3190"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3189"},{"taxonomy":"post_badge","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cpiran.net\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_badge?post=3189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}